Waiting for the Barbarians
About the Film
At a sleepy frontier settlement on the edge of a nameless Empire, a decent, ageing Magistrate has kept an easy peace with the nomadic “barbarians” of the desert for decades. That fragile balance is shattered by the arrival of Colonel Joll, a coldly efficient officer of the Empire’s secret police, who is convinced the barbarians are massing for war and sets about extracting “the truth” through torture.
Sickened by Joll’s brutality, the Magistrate takes in a barbarian girl who has been crippled by the interrogators and undertakes a perilous journey to return her to her people. His act of conscience brands him a traitor: he is imprisoned, humiliated and stripped of everything, while Joll’s punitive expedition into the desert only succeeds in provoking the very uprising the Empire feared. Adapted by J.M. Coetzee from his own celebrated novel, it is a stark parable of imperialism and complicity.
Plot synopsis by johnny-depp.org.
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp plays Colonel Joll, the Empire’s chillingly polite enforcer, instantly recognisable by the small round smoked-glass spectacles that hide his eyes. Depp underplays the role to unnerving effect — soft-spoken, immaculate and utterly without conscience — embodying the banal, bureaucratic face of state cruelty as he pursues confessions from people who have nothing to confess.
Cast & Crew
Cast
The MagistrateMark Rylance
Colonel JollJohnny Depp
Officer MandelRobert Pattinson
The GirlGana Bayarsaikhan
MaiGreta Scacchi
Crew
DirectorCiro Guerra
ScreenplayJ.M. Coetzee (from his novel)
MusicGiampiero Ambrosi
CinematographyChris Menges
ProducersMichael Fitzgerald, Monika Bacardi, Andrea Iervolino, Olga Segura
StudioIervolino Entertainment / AMBI Group
Filming Locations
- Morocco (desert and fort locations)
- Italy
More about this film
Trivia
- The screenplay was written by Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee, adapting his own 1980 novel.
- It marked the English-language directorial debut of Colombian director Ciro Guerra (Embrace of the Serpent).
- The film premiered in competition at the 2019 Venice Film Festival.
- It reunited Depp on screen with Robert Pattinson, years after both had played Wizarding-World-adjacent roles.
